This is Grendal
by FallOutBoyFiend
Summary: Ever wondered what Grendal was thinking when he attacked Herot? Where he came from? What were his ulterior motives? Well now is your time to find out. :D sorry for the cheesey summary, I felt like being overdramatic


**Disclaimer:: I own nothing really, just my will to create. Enjoy.**

At first, no one, not even my own mother, believed that I was the one to overtake the great Hall of Herot in my outrageous fury. Surely, Grendal, the baby of the Cain People was not capable of such things? As the news of my glorious revelation spread throughout the Cain community, however, it was clear that no other Canian would be as patient as I, waiting for that perfect moment to strike out against those naked-skinned infidels. They possessed neither feather nor fur, but rather an unseemly patch of long, greasy hair that only covered their heads, and on the female specimen, only the tops of their scalps. They were monstrosities to look at, bare and stupid as they were, trying to impale me with worthless sharp things. I was impervious to such weapons, and I never lowered myself to their method of cowardly warfare.

I was always looked down upon, even as a child. I was the "runt of the litter," so to speak, not to mention different than my comrades, with my long feathered arms tipped with razor-sharp claws, and fangs like that of the vampires, roaming about in their mythical worlds of violent love. The rest were smart and wealthy, going away to the Cain University, an underground night-school for people like us. Most of them would end up becoming legends.

My childhood neighbor Farrel, for example, with his scaly snake-like form and love of the water, was able to occupy a lake called Loch Ness, where it is said he is making quite the living for himself, stealing drunken Nakeds off the safety of the sandy beaches and devouring them whole- like a true Cain should. Sometimes, just to amuse himself, he would make an appearance on the surface during the day, just to throw the Nakeds off guard.

I, on the other hand had no such opportunity in education as a youth. Instead, since my mother hadn't much Canian wealth to send me off to the university, she spoke and bargained with some of her male connections and set me up in a homey cliff cave of Denmark. I had be come a Dane. A Cain Dane. There were very few Cains who dwelt in the Danish country, mostly because of its out-of-the-way location and the lesser-population of Nakeds. I had no special talent or calling (for example Farrel's scaly calling to the life of a water demon). My unusual black cloak of feathers gave no talent to me other than the mask of darkness and stealth, not to mention the highly-aimed for look of a predator. In any case, I was unable to fly, and the aerial view wasn't, well, wasn't exactly _consoling _to me, if you do catch what I am saying, so I couldn't fulfill my mother's wishes of me being a demon of flight.

That is why, I figured, she decided to move not too far away from me, in a lake in a wood. It's not the life she had hoped for, as a young mother to an all-but-disabled son. Beside the fact that she would rather see me, her only child, grow up to be something more than a lingering nothing-demon, sworn to solitude in a quiet cave off the Danish coast, she would probably have liked to live in or around a volcano, or some such natural wonder, where she would feel more at home, being a fire demon, as opposed to living at the bottom of a lake. Sometimes at night, she gets fired up into a rage so great, it burns the top of the otherwise-vacant waters of the secluded lake.

We were cursed by the man that the once-pagan community of Nakeds called their God. A ruler whose magical powers they claimed had created their world- my world- our world. Therefore, given our "Devilish" appearance, we were forced to go into hiding, plotting our revenge by day and hunting the Nakeds by night. They were the ones to blame, after all. Their silly rituals had driven us out of our homes, where we once lingered peacefully near the towns of the Nakeds, leaving them be, and vice versa. It was that moronic preacher, that's who. He comes a-preaching out of his homeland somewhere in the Far East, converting all he can into believing something that the Nakeds had never thought of before. After all, it never occurred to them that just _one _god could have had the intellect and patience to create an entire world, with different languages and climates and people.

It was because of this man, this one Naked who came to preach his religious beliefs to the neighboring Naked tribes, who were not only vulnerable to his nonsense teachings, but were also willing to give into and believe him. He was the one who told them that we were cursed by this God, and he turned them violently against us. He told them that the only way to be sure of their safe deliverance to a happy and heavenly afterlife was to be rid of my "God forsaken" kin. That's how we ended up living the way we did, alone and secluded from the Nakeds with whom we once shared such close quarters. We never forgave them for what they did to us. The humiliation and casualties suffered by the Cains because of the cruel naivety of the Naked people.

I was asleep in my cave, that fateful morning, dreaming, no doubt about the night to come, when I would be continuing my torture of the great Herot. I didn't really know anymore the reason for wasting my energies on the nearly-empty hall. There were not many Nakeds left for me to claim for a meal, and those that I had not killed were killing themselves, disobeying the law that the Holy Man had laid down for them to follow.

It was right after these dormant thoughts had crossed my mind that I was roused with a start to the sounds of a loud celebration coming in the familiar direction of Herot, a sound that I thought I had done away with some twelve years ago. The sound continued throughout the day, preventing me from my sleep, and thus making me even more agitated and anxious for my nightly prowl. Surely, those joyous sounds meant that I would be able to get a decent meal.

When I reached the entrance to the hall, there were two guards that were not familiar to me, an anomaly at best. Who on earth would dare to visit Herot when the news of my rampage were said to have spread worldwide? After thinking about it for a bit, it made me smirk to think that someone may have come to try to defeat me. No doubt, they would try to use those ridiculous weapons. How tiresome. In any case, I thought for sure that it was going to be a good night.

I entered the hall, undaunted by the new guards. I hadn't taken five steps into the sleeping hall when I was attacked. Not by the foolish weaponry, as I had expected, but rather the attacker expected to defeat me in hand-on-hand combat. I must give it to him; he had me in a killer grip. The rest of the battle really was a blur from there. I remember mostly the pain, the terrible pain inflicted by that metal-skinned Naked. How did such a small creature become so physically able? I suppose I struggled well enough, for a few times I remembered that he faltered in his continuous struggle to hold me back. At one point, his comrades attempted to stab my back with their weaponry, but they soon gave up when they realized that it wouldn't work on my Cainian figure.

Finally, the Naked pinned me down. I screeched in terror as he pulled up on my arm, gruesomely tearing the joint out of its socket. I roared with rage and pain all at once, knowing that the bleeding would not reside for some time, and that this wound would most likely be fatal for my part. He let me go then, probably sharing my knowledge of the injury. I dragged myself away from Herot, leaving a sticky trail of blood in my wake. Fortunately, I was able to make it to my cave, lay myself down on my bed of stone, and wait. I let the blood run down and underneath my body and eventually onto the rocky floor of the cave. It was hard to believe that twelve hours before, I was having victorious dreams, and now it was nearing to the time that I would never have a dream again. I wondered, as I'm sure most people do, how it would feel when eventually, my time came.

After awhile, I felt my breathing getting shallower, and I could no longer keep my eyes open. At that point, I was waiting rather impatiently to die. The pain was unbearable and I was shivering uncontrollably. I would have died a lonely man had it not been for my mother. At that exact moment, she came through the door to the cave, and seeing my condition, she rushed over to my side. I was in my last moments, and my mother gave me both comfort and grief. It was the first time that I thought about the fact that she would have to go on without me. I was also a bit concerned for her. Although she was a bit larger than I, that metal Naked was stronger yet, and I knew that she would try to avenge my death. I opened my eyes and looked into hers. There were fiery tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. It was the last image I saw on this earth, and the last sound was her howl of grief. What they say was right… no parent should have to bury their young.


End file.
